Not exactly
Philip Bump take a look at that question because of Anderson Cooper’s assertion last night on his show that it’s important the CNN audience reckon with the fact that half the country supports Trump:
In recent YouGov polling conducted for the Economist, about 45 percent of respondents said they viewed Trump strongly or somewhat favorably, getting us near that half-of-Americans mark.
But that “somewhat” is hazy. When Quinnipiac asked the same question in March, without the “somewhat” option, only about a third of respondents said they viewed Trump favorably — more than YouGov’s “strongly favorable” but less than the combined “strongly/somewhat.” It was the same percentage as said they considered themselves supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement.
Of course, we’re only talking about American adults here, not younger people among whom, it’s safe to assume, Trump is generally even less popular. Even within the universe of adults, however, extrapolating from “didn’t lose by that much in 2020” to “half the country supports him” is a stretch.
First of all, there’s that issue of anti-Biden vs. pro-Trump votes, as above. Second, more adult citizens of the United States didn’t vote at all in 2020 than voted for Trump. If we’re looking only at votes as a measure of support, Trump was supported in 2020 by only about 30 percent of adults who might have been able to vote.
This is not to say that Biden is far more popular; his numbers aren’t much different. But there’s no call for more coverage aimed at understanding Biden and his views — largely because there would be no controversy over airing a similar conversation with Biden.
The exotic “The Trump voter” remains an object of fascination for the mainstream media and it ends up presenting them as a much larger faction than they actually are. If there is such a thing as the bandwagon effect this probably helps Trump with the sort of weak-minded GOP leaners and Independents who don’t really follow politics and basically just run with the crowd.